


Upward Glancing of an Eye

by jesterlady



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Depression, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Gen, Guilt, Memory Alteration, Missing Scene, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 11:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite their differences it seems that Tom may be the perfect person to help the Doctor deal with processing his actions from his recovered memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Upward Glancing of an Eye

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own ST Voyager. The title is by James Montgomery.
> 
> Don't you think this happened? I completely do. Plus, bonus Kes and Doctor friendship. Take it as before or after Janeway's scene with the Doctor, I don't think it matters too much.

It was Tom’s turn to watch the Doc so he bid B’Elanna goodbye with a kiss on the top of her nose and got a cuff to the side of his head in return and made his way, grinning, to the holodeck. His grin was quickly wiped when he relieved Chakotay because the Doc looked just as bad as he had the day before.

Even though Tom had agreed with the Captain’s initial decision to rewrite the Doctor’s memory he was somewhat relieved that the masquerade was over. There was something about the tight quarters of the ship, the unity of their desire to get home, and the way they only had each other that made secrets unbearable on Voyager. Even if it was from a hologram.

Because the Doctor was more than that now, it was hard to deny, even though some people like B’Elanna did their best. Tom’s theory was that because B’Elanna was so used to working with machines and programs every day that she had developed a necessary superiority complex in order to do her job. However sentient machine life had been proved, evidenced by Data on the Enterprise. It wasn’t that big of a step to consider holograms having the potential, especially when one considered all the constant holodeck malfunctions that seemed to occur where the holograms became aware of their hologramatic status and tried to take over the ship.

The biggest evidence of all, in Tom’s mind, was the Doctor himself. His constant search for a name, his love of opera, the way he attempted to train Seven of Nine in social interaction when he himself was so inept. It was all evidence of his adaptive programming that had been forced to expand far beyond its medical database perhaps simply because he had been running for so long. 

Now the problem wasn’t that he was sentient but that he was so sentient he had to deal with things like human guilt.

The Doctor was sitting in his chair, ramrod straight, occasionally monologuing about what a horrible doctor he was.

“He’s tried a couple of times to rewrite his own program,” Chakotay said in a low voice. “The last time he was pretty clever, rerouting power from the main deflectors to cover what he was doing while I was asleep.”

“I guess I won’t go to sleep then,” Tom said.

“Good luck,” said Chakotay, leaving.

“I may be a hologram, but my hearing is excellent,” said the Doctor while Tom settled himself comfortably in the other chair.

“Don’t take it personally, Doc,” said Tom. “We’re just looking out for ya.”

“There’s no point to all of this,” said the Doctor. “Captain Janeway was right to rewrite my program. It’s infuriating to be proven so wrong, but I can see why it’s necessary.”

“It’s not that easy anymore. You’ve changed a lot in the last eighteen months,” said Tom.

“My program has adapted to its circumstances, nothing more.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Tom asked. “Think about what you’ve been doing the last few days; do your actions really sound like a program expanding its subroutines to you?”

“I am malfunctioning in some way,” said the Doctor bitterly.

“Now you sound like Seven,” said Tom.

“If you want someone to make more human, you‘ve got an excellent test subject right there,” the Doctor grumbled.

“The Captain’s working on her,” said Tom easily. “As I recall it was Seven who helped change the Captain’s mind about you.”

“I don’t want to feel like this anymore,” said the Doctor, putting his head in his hands. “I’m no use to anyone like this.”

“Tough, that’s what all humans have to go through,” said Tom. “We don’t have the option of turning off our programs or rewriting them. If something happens or we make a mistake or we feel guilty, we just have to live with it.”

“Adaptive programming or not,” said the Doctor, “I am still a hologram, programmed for a specific purpose. How can I serve this crew in this shape?”

“Let me propose a scenario for you, Doc,” said Tom, stretching his arms behind his head. “Say Voyager’s CMO hadn’t died when we arrived in the Delta Quadrant, suppose he’s been helping us all along and he was the one who had to make the decision between Harry and Jetal. Now...he was fully human, probably subject to emotions a hell of a lot more than you, don’t you think he’d be feeling the same guilt about it? But would he have the choice to just forget it and stop being our doctor? You’ve said it yourself, doctors make life and death decisions all of the time. The only difference between you and them is that they’ve experienced the guilt from the get go and you’re dealing with it for the first time.”

“Your scenario is a little biased,” said the Doctor but he looked intrigued and slightly less unhappy. “But, as much as it pains me to admit it, you just might be right.”

“Spread it around, I don’t mind,” said Tom. “Listen, Doc, you’re allowed to feel bad. It happens to all of us.”

“But I’m not supposed to feel this way!” the Doctor said, agitated again.

“Maybe you weren’t, but the damage is done, you are, you do. Voyager’s unique in more than one way,” said Tom.

“Maybe I should stop if my continued experimenting with life is going to endanger the crew.”

“I think it’s your experimenting that has saved this crew,” said Tom. “Think about it, all your experience and a human’s adaptability. The EMH is designed for short term emergencies. If it couldn’t adapt and change we’d be dead. Literally. You’ve saved the ship plenty of times and you wouldn’t have been able to do it if you’d been the way you were when you were first switched on. There needs to be a certain flexibility to your position, that’s why we have humans CMOs and not EMHs.”

“Your confidence is overwhelming,” said the Doctor. “But I’m not sure I can take this kind of pressure. I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

Tom wracked his brain for the right thing to say.

“Do you remember when you created a holo family for yourself?” he asked gently. The Doctor shuddered and nodded. “Do you remember what I told you about having to live through the pain? Because it’s like I said then, if we don’t do that, if we don’t face our fears and pain and guilt, then we’ll always be stuck with it, we’ll never move past it.”

“You certainly didn’t seem to feel that way when you were agreeing with the Captain to rewrite my memory,” said the Doctor, suddenly angry, standing up and pacing.

“I did and I do and I don’t know anymore,” said Tom, standing himself, feeling uncomfortable with where this conversation was heading. “I felt guilty at the time.”

“You, what did you have to feel guilty about?” asked the Doctor, his tone accusing.

“Because I wanted Harry to live!” Tom said loudly. “Even when I was yelling at you to make your choice, in the back of my mind a little voice was saying, ‘pick Harry, pick Harry, pick Harry.’ I was relieved when you picked him even though Jetal was beautiful and happy all the time and could beat the pants off me playing pool at Sandrine’s and had a husband she couldn’t wait to get back to on Earth. But Harry’s my best friend. After it was all over, that’s the guilt I lived with. That’s why I wanted to forget the matter as much as you did.”

“I see,” said the Doctor, his face perplexed. “But isn’t it normal for humans to want to preserve their friends?”

“Very normal,” said Tom, sitting down again. “But aren’t you the one feeling guilty for having picked your friend, what does that make you?”

“Now you’re confusing me,” said the Doctor, sitting down as well. “I just can’t tell which is the right way to think anymore.”

“Join the club, Doc, that’s what humans do. Maybe I should have been more vocal about not doing this the first time. I’m sorry, cause you’d be eighteen months closer to feeling better and wouldn’t be dealing with feeling like we betrayed you. I’ll tell you one thing though,” Tom said, leaning forward, “there was one person who fought for you back then. One person who got as vocal as I’ve ever seen her.”

“Kes,” the Doctor said quietly.

“Naturally,” said Tom. “She was not happy about the Captain’s decision and went so far as to try and get Tuvoc to help her repress her own memories of the event so you wouldn’t have to share the fate alone. The Captain went ballistic and it took you begging Kes not to do that to herself to keep her from doing it.”

“Yes, I remember now,” said the Doctor slowly.

“I’m sorry you’re going through this, Doc, but you’re not alone,” said Tom. “That’s about as sentimental as I get, so I hope you’ll take it.”

“You’ve been surprisingly helpful, Mr. Paris,” said the Doctor. “I’m sure you’ll want to put that in your personal logs for posterity’s sake.”

“Oh, I’ll be sure to,” said Tom, stretching back in the chair. “Now, did you ever hear the one about the doctor, the engineer, and the Terellian?”


End file.
